“Wonderful Wishes Comes True …” – Sasha Masakowski “Wishes” Album Review

I put the review below on cdbaby.com a few years ago, as a favor to my friend Sasha, a native New Orleanian … and the top young jazz singer in town, versatile as all the variety of music in NOLA, who has played worldwide in recent years.

Sasha has made an adventurous, striking second album, full of a worldly range of her musical wishes, expressed in personal lyrics about life’s paradoxical twists & turns.

The title song starts off frisky & lively, as she boldly & humbly declares “we are beautiful people … we are incredibly wise … we are filled with delusions … each one a reflection of life”. Her natural, melodic scatting, one with & over the piano, grabs the ear, before the sonic backdrop richly rises almost symphonically in the chorus. “Yours: A Love/Hate Letter to my Hometown” is imbued with a warm sincerity in her voice with a plush cushion of vibes, as she airs out her feelings about the gains & pains in New Orleans, sketching out intriguing lines like “tainted beauty, paint me with the colors of your song”.

She boldly takes on the venerable “St. James Infirmary”, parading out over a martial beat over plaintive piano notes, colored with some wild, high scatting. Besides the rich cribbed Cab Calloway-colored chorus “… hi dee hi dee hee, he’ll never find no one like me”, get ready for this famous fatal, final scene- “now when I die, please lay my body in Versace from head to toe, so when they close my golden casket, in style they’ll see me go … six poker dealers for my pallbearers … with a red-hot band playing all my music, raising hell as we go”.

Her sweet voice with her Dad Steve Masakowski’s elegant guitar work on “Falling Leaves” & “Tacea Le Notte Placida” are an irresistable match that produces simply spare beautiful music. Let’s hope there’s a future album of merely Masakowski pere and fille … a pure musical family affair. Sasha really grows and glows on “E Preciso Perdoar”, a Brazilian standard she also put on her “Musical Playground” debut album. She used smooth, overdubbed, self-hamonizing on that album, but she comes in close here with an intimate tone, starting out with some free-wheeling scatting before moving confidently into the lush Latin number. While the musical tapestry gradually appears tastefully behind her, Sasha grabs your ear whenever she so freely and joyously scats onto higher ground.

“Pieces of You” is a very personal relationship ending, and album-closing bookend to the opening “Wishes”. Her bluesy vocal opening over a single-note piano is so compelling … “so you should ask if it’s you that I love, well I couldn’t tell you enough … how hard it is to admit that it’s over now”. Once the band fully kicks into full stop-start tempo, the chorus lays out the rise and the fall … “pieces of you are beautiful and I’m dreaming … but dreams are a scheme, for beauty is so misleading”.

Album producer James Westfall’s piano solos on “Pieces …” and throughout are first rate, full of fleet fingering, in colorful flourishes without being excessive. His clean, airy production allows Sasha’s rich, supple voice to be complimented nicely by her young, talented quartet.

And if I may take a piece out of “Pieces …”, my ears can’t wait to love the sounds of Sasha’s precious spirit in all its musical mysteries in the future.

Get her CDs or find out about her gigs at-

http://www.sashamasakowski.com

http://www.facebook.com/smasakowski?fref=ts

Learning Lyric of the Day

Don’t you dare … ever tell me he will care.
I’m certain … it’s the final curtain.
I never wanna hear … from any cheerful Pollyannas.
Who tell you … fate supplies a mate.
That’s all ….. baananas.
They”re writing songs of love .. but not for me.
There’s lucky stars above .. but not for me.

Maria De Angelis- “But Not For Me”

Ian James Pinchback- ‘Surreal Estate”- Album Review

If you found my “Fog Song” video verbiage too much, you better check out now, weak one- my very new friend, and music idol, Ian “The (NOT) Terrible” is only going to get lionized stronger and stronger in my pen and heart- held in and spoken loud … from here on out.

This early 30ish musical mountain of a man, raised in the calm hamlet of Lake Orion, MI … has unleashed a brutal, unrelentingly and deeply honest aural assault on us all. Am not going to detail what I’ve learned anew about his physical and personal torments, except to say life hasn’t dealt him a tough hand- it’s taken his personal deck of cards and shredded them to ribbons … dreams, hopes, plans, pursuit of happiness unimpeded by happenstance- all that and more.

OK, let me relax for a sec- bottom line is he ain’t going away, retreating, walling himself off from life- I would tell him that at my own very real peril. He’s doing what he knows- putting his  life, both external events and internal repents- in both unreal and real, heartfelt words … out there on this record- for all of our benefit … and I really pray for gain of his heart, soul and brain.

So let’s talk about some songs (about time, right?). Crushingly, driving into the record- the doomed, gloom phrased, “I got the Detroit blues” based (so appropo now), “Death Rattle Blues (From the Cass Corridor)”.

That death chain rattling, echoing, car cruising beat … aimed direct into the specter of a city and finding all the downtown downers- all told in Ian’s hollow, hungriest heart, shell of a voice.

“The bar was filled with demons and ghouls, and all other manner of frights. A foxy little witch hopped off her bar stool, and she locked me clear into her sights. She said, ‘Hey hon, you got a dollar? I need to go to the liquor store … and drown the death rattle blues (from the Cass Corridor)”.

You go buy the CD and hear the song itself in its entirety to get the rest of this corrupted, twisted late night of the urban soul lament- grow a couple, will ya.

Continuing the lost soul out on the road trip … here comes “Burning Highway” in all its Johnny Cash, “I Walk the Line”, rickety beat glory- what a tour de force of tragicomic scenes out on that hot, scorching (or even snow-squalled) pavement.

Deal with this, y’all- “There’s a truck broken down in the middle of the road … there’s a man with cracked leather skin walking through the sleet and snow … forest noises follow me, man, everywhere I go … riding down a dusty trail, Detroit to Tupelo”.

And then, “Dead Eyes of the Storm” … perhaps this record’s darkest, very wide-ranging, soul deep sucking out the insides of one’s lessons to survival- some how … some way- but some even then … will fall back to begin again.

After its gentle guitar and violin opening, this mild musical motif yields to Ian painfully expelling out thoughts like- “Seems we’re floating in the ether, of some secret realm … ghostly voices in the AM static … there’s a madman at the helm. Everyone is so quick to anger, when the thoughts and ideals clash … but now we’ve reached that stage of the opera, where the phantom rips off his mask”.

Finally, in all this chaos, Ian looks out for relief, and then must go back within- all of us- “I sent out a text a while ago, I’ve yet to get an answer … psyche flooded with the quakes and visions of some collective, unconscious cancer … in the Dead “Eyeeesss” of the Storm … you see where we’ve been born.”

Few more, veered off-road compositions- “Red Elk, “Hydras”, “Halloween Town” et al … so all eat- em’ up now. Not a dud or sad sack or clunker on this record- no way, no how, no low or banal bow.

Ignore this man and his monumental, wildly wounded and wounding music at your own peril, but I doubt anyone with a healing head, bleeding heart, seething soul … can even try to delude themselves into it.

Find this musically and physically massive, not passive … force of nature at- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1413200860&fref=ts

My New Orleans Guitar Guru …

(Late add- http://www.chipwilson.net  … get with it, y’all)

So after a 1984 World Fair summer trip to NOLA, didn’t get down to that water-bedeviled oasis of such sensually-soaked sounds until April 2007. Actually came down Easter Sunday to find something I guess I’d lost over the years … to resurrect my love affair with moving music- the aural, the lyrical, the internal … and yes, the spiritual.

After a couple joyous nights hearing some youthful players re-inventing great trad. jazz up at Donna’s on Rampart (sadly now gone), or at The Spotted Cat down on Frenchmen St. … I luckily stumbled upon my first real NOLA friend … singer/songwriter/gypsy jazzin’, note ‘nnihilating, solo singeing guitarist Holden “Chip” Wilson.

At the long gone 300 Club in the French Quarter on Decatur, as the rowdy piano-pounder ended about 10, I asked the bartender Nathan where to walk in the FQ for more music … he pointed to Chip, on break from The Kerry Irish Pub across the street. After hearing the common mannish (not boy) CW … umm … “damply dispose” a poor guitar pupil in off-color terms … I knew I would follow him back to The Kerry.

Couldn’t have known that beyond the Motown covers he’s mastered in his own slippery slide guitar, raspy soulful manner … Chip would bring out this colorful canon of his story songs. First, he easily plays it all- Van the Man to Stevie Wonder(ful) to Dylan to NOLA jazz folkin’ standards to those classic (WON’T say “old”) Delta country blues to Americana Civil War era standards … on and on … a list honestly longer than one’s lifetime of lies.

But as the night wore on, hearing him bring out his triumphant “Gloryland” (see video posted) or the quietly reflective “Mostly Blue” … I knew then this was a musician’s musician … a songwriter’s songwriter. No FQ tourist trash troubadour- Chip is undoubtedly in the elite of his craft. This longtime luthier, Connecticut-born and NOLA citizen now for about 20 years … is home where he belongs, in this fabled locale of musical mysteries, narrated nightly. For good measure, he’s also for years played Umbria Jazz Fest in Italy- so he’s an honorary paisan. And other sundry spots with great taste.

Of course, now have seen Chip in Louisiana every April, during the free, NOLA music ONLY French Quarter Fest- in the FQ and down by The Mississippi River- upon his sage advice for my 2008 return, as opposed to the world superstar-studded Jazz Fest. Not to mention a couple extra NOLA trips, and once in The Big Apple.

And bought his various albums, for me and later friends, like his NOLA ’90s debut “Jumpin’ Somethin'” … the Crescent City Chip done up minus horns, but with, oh so much sweet style. “Mostly Blue”, that musical mosaic portrait in time, unto itself. The masterfully minimalist 2008 kiss-off to the fairer sex, “Last Love Song”. The duo album of rich, soundly layered compositions by Chip and his NOLA neighbor and friend Jesse Moore, “Side by Side” in 2010, which almost got a trad. folk Grammy nomination. Up through his recent seminal, sensational storytelling albums of “Constantinople” and “Fond Regards”. If you can hear Chip bring back Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times” on the former, without tempting a tear … you have no heart.

So this is thank you for all that, Chip- thank you for your friendship … thank you for your caring for just another tourist turned your deepest fan … and of course, thank you for spending your life bringin’ it all back home- for me … and all your blessed listeners.

New Orleans Alert- She’s the Real Jazz Singin’ Deal …

On my first of since annual visits to NOLA (in local parlance) … I got a lucky tip to catch Sasha Masakowski singing with a band led by her father, noted jazz guitarist and teacher in NOLA, Steve Masakowski. The 300 Club on Bourbon in the French Quarter may be gone, but the exquisite jazz that night I heard, sung so clearly, joyously by Sasha … has led to a long love affair with her musical gifts. She’s a premier young “lioness” of the NOLA jazz scene, and has  performed from NYC to Russia to China.

Just read this review I did of her second album,  Wishes, for cdbaby.com-

“Wonderful “Wishes” Comes True …” 

      Sasha has made an adventurous, striking second album, full of a worldly range of her musical Wishes, expressed in personal lyrics about life’s paradoxical twists & turns. The title song starts off frisky & lively, as she boldly & humbly declares “we are beautiful people … we are incredibly wise … we are filled with delusions … each one a reflection of life”. Her natural, melodic scatting, one with & over the piano, grabs the ear, before the sonic backdrop richly rises almost symphonically in the chorus.

“Yours: A Love/Hate Letter to my Hometown” is imbued with a warm sincerity in her voice with a plush cushion of vibes, as she airs out her feelings about the gains & pains in New Orleans, sketching out intriguing lines like “tainted beauty, paint me with the colors of your song”.

She boldly takes on the venerable “St. James Infirmary”, parading out over a martial beat over plaintive piano notes, colored with some wild, high scatting. Besides the rich cribbed Cab Calloway-colored chorus “… hi dee hi dee hi dee hee, he’ll never find no one like me”, get ready for this famous fatal, final scene- “now when I die, please lay my body in Versace from head to toe, so when they close my golden casket, in style they’ll see me go … six poker dealers for my pallbearers … with a red-hot band playing all my music, raising hell as we go”.

Her sweet voice with just her Dad Steve Masakowski’s elegant guitar work on “Falling Leaves” & “Tacea Le Notte Placida” are an irresistable match that produces simply spare, beautiful music. Let’s hope there’s a future album of merely Masakowski pere & fille- a pure musical family affair.

Sasha really grows and glows on “E Preciso Perdoar”, a Brazilian standard she also put on her “Musical Playground” debut album. She used smooth overdubbed, self-hamonizing on that album, but she comes in close here with an intimate tone, starting out with some free-wheeling scatting before moving confidently into the lush Latin number. While the musical tapestry gradually appears tastefully behind her, Sasha grabs your ear whenever she so freely and joyously scats onto higher ground.

“Pieces of You” is a very personal relationship ending, and album-closing bookend to the opening “Wishes”. Her bluesy vocal opening over a single-note piano is so compelling … “so you should ask if it’s you that I love, well I couldn’t tell you enough … how hard it is to admit that it’s over now”. Once the band fully kicks into full stop-start tempo, the chorus lays out the rise and the fall … “pieces of you are beautiful and I’m dreaming … but dreams are a scheme, for beauty is so misleading”.

Album producer James Westfall’s piano solos on “Pieces …” and throughout are first rate, full of fleet fingering, in colorful flourishes without being excessive. His clean, airy production allows Sasha’s rich, supple voice to be complimented nicely by her young, talented quartet. And if I may take a piece out of “Pieces of You” … my ears can’t wait to love the sounds of Sasha’s precious spirit in all its musical mysteries in the future.